Agenda and minutes

There were no Declarations of Interest to record.  

There were no members of the public or the press in attendance. 

The Senior Scrutiny Adviser, Scrutiny Services, Legal and Democratic Services, Resources Directorate, reported to the Improving Lives Select Commission on the progress against the Select Commission’s Work Programme. 

A sub-group had met to initially discuss issues in relation to Rotherham’s Early Help strategy; a fuller report was on the agenda of today’s meeting.  

A sub-group had met in relation to the issue of anti-bullying work and progress had been made.  A fuller report would be presented to a meeting of the Improving Lives Select Commission held in early 2013.

Resolved: -  That the information shared be noted. 

Resolved: -  That the minutes of the previous meeting of the Improving Lives Select Commission held on 24th October, 2012, be agreed as an accurate record for signature by the Chairperson.  

• Chaired by Councillor Ken Wyatt, Cabinet Member for Health and Wellbeing. 

Resolved: - That Councillor David Roche be the Improving Lives Select Commission’s representative to the Environment and Climate Change Strategy Group.   

Documents attached: -

• Paper outlining a series of questions to support the Improving Lives Select Commission’s scrutiny of Rotherham’s Early Help Strategy.

• Cover report outlining details of Rotherham’s Early Help strategy.

• Early Help for Children, Young People and Families – Rotherham’s Strategy to reduce inequalities for families. 

Councillor G. A, Russell, Chairperson of the Improving Lives Select Commission, welcomed Officers to the meeting who had prepared a presentation informing members of the Select Commission about the development of Rotherham’s Early Help Strategy.  The Select Commission were asked to consider the areas of the Strategy they considered could be most effectively addressed by the scrutiny process. 

Warren Carratt, Service Manager – Strategy, Standards and Development, Children and Young People’s Services was the Local Authority’s Lead Officer in relation to the Early Help Strategy, attended the meeting to provide a presentation that gave a detailed overview of the Strategy.  A number of issues were covered, including: -

• Timeline of the development and evolution of the present day Early Help Strategy;
  • Linkages with other strategies, including child poverty, the introduction of the Common Assessment Framework and the Prevention and Early Intervention Strategy.
  • Impact of budget reductions and their role in the Council’s changing organisational and management structure, such as loss of Director-level portfolios and organisational structure.
  • National reviews informing policy development locally: Munro, Field and Allen – however, they were not policy directives and during 2012 detail had been announced by the Central Government in relation to the Troubled Families initiative.    

The Early Help Strategy’s definition was: - 

“We are committed to identifying the need and supporting children, young people and families at the earliest possible stage.  We will change our focus to a preventative and early intervention approach with a radical shift of ways of working and resourcing to support this.  This is a significant step forward for integrated working in Rotherham.”

“Intervening early and as soon as possible to tackle problems emerging for children, young people and their families or with a population most at risk of developing problems.  Effective integration may occur at any point in a child or young person’s life.”

• There was a clear moral imperative to undertake this process;
• There was a strong financial argument to take an early help approach;
• Every Child Matters;
• Rotherham’s Early Help Strategy was partnership-wide.  Children and Young People’s Services was the lead Directorate.   

The Continuum of Needs ‘windscreen’ had been re-designed specifically for use in Rotherham, and included four categories ranging from Universal, Vulnerable, Complex and Acute.

·         Children and families could quickly escalate between the levels of need;

·         The Early Help Strategy could be initiated when a child or a family was at any stage of the Continuum;

·         A child, and their family, could be placed on the Early Help continuum before their birth when there were known concerns;

·         Partner organisations and strategies included Learning Communities (schools), Safer Neighbourhood teams, 11 Most Deprived Areas (although areas not in the classification would not be left out), Common Assessment Framework.

Case studies of how the Early Help Strategy helped families who were classified as ‘universal’, vulnerable’ and ‘complex’ were shared with the Select Commission.

Preparation for adopting the Early Help Strategy had been undertaken: -

·         Workforce development programme had been developed – including a competence model for  ...  view the full minutes text for item 39.

• Wednesday 23^rd January, 2013, to start at 1.30 pm in the Rotherham Town Hall.

Membership: -

Councillors G. A. Russell (Chair), N. License (Vice-Chair), S. Ahmed, S. Ali, L. Astbury, A. Buckley, J. Burton, M. Clark, B. Dodson, L. Donaldson, B. Kaye, D. Lelliott, L. Pitchley, C. Read, C. Robinson, D. Roche, A. Roddison, T. Sharman. 

Co-opted Members: - Mrs. A. Clough, Mrs. J. Blanch-Nicholson, Mr. M. Smith,  Parish Councillor N. Tranmer, Mrs. K. Muscroft, Ms. J. Jones,  Mrs. J. Fitzgerald.

Resolved: -  That the next meeting of the Improving Lives Select Commission take place on Wednesday 23rd January, 2013, to start at 1.30 pm in the Rotherham Town Hall.